Snow Wolf

by Glenn Meade

  Slanski looked down at the locks of hair. He had loved them both, Petya and Katya, had always wanted to protect them. He vaguely remembered the night a storm came, and little Petya had been so afraid. Lying in his bedroom in the darkness, Slanski heard him crying. “Are you afraid?”

  Lightning flashed and thunder rolled beyond the bedroom window. Petya wouldn’t stop sobbing.

  “Don’t be afraid. Come, sleep beside me.”

  Petya had snuggled in beside him, a mass of dark curls and puppy fat, still sobbing as Slanski’s arms went around him and hugged him close. “Don’t cry, Petya. I’ll always keep you safe. And if anyone or anything ever tries to hurt you I’ll kill them. You understand, Petya? And when Mama has her baby, I’ll keep baby safe, too.”

  He had held Petya close all night, warm and safe.

  But he hadn’t kept him safe afterward. Nor Katya.

  Slanski put the locks of hair aside, one dark, one faded blond, all that remained of Petya and Katya, then opened the old album and stared down at the images.

  • • •

  The two men had parked the car five miles away, off the forest road, and trekked through the snowy woods in darkness up to the clearing. It stood on a ridge across the lake, sheltered by pine trees, and it was the best location they had found the previous day, with a reasonable view of the cabin.

  It took them twenty minutes to set up the equipment, the white camouflage canvas tent and the tripods for the powerful military binoculars. By then it was after two and bitterly cold, a dusting of snow on the ground, and they climbed wearily into their sleeping bags and tried to sleep.

  20

  * * *

  NEW YORK

  FEBRUARY 21

  Carlo Lombardi sat opposite Kurt Braun in the private office above the club on the Lower East Side docks. Lombardi said, “Your friends are still here at the lake house. I have my people watching it, but nice and discreet. Another guy arrived last week, big guy with a beard, looks like a hick. He’s still staying at the cabin. It was in the last report.”

  Braun frowned and leaned forward. “I read that. You got photographs of him?”

  “Not this time, and it’s too risky for my men to get close.” Lombardi made a face as he looked at the map. “Who in their right mind would want to live up there? Real hillbilly country.”

  Braun said, “This man who arrived at the cabin—I’ll need to know who he is and what he’s doing there.”

  Lombardi shrugged. “Tell your friend Arkashin, he’ll figure something out. Me, I don’t want to blow this thing just to have my boys get a closer look.” He looked at Braun. “So what’s the deal?”

  Braun spoke for almost a minute. When he finished explaining, Lombardi whistled. “Serious business.”

  Braun removed an envelope from his pocket and threw it on the table. Lombardi picked it up and riffled through the thick wad of bills inside. He suppressed the urge to whistle again.

  He had a broad grin on his face as he stood. “Vince can come along.”

  “I presume he’s capable?”

  Lombardi smiled. “Capable? Mister, let me tell you something, Vince cut his first teeth on guns in the cradle. So when do you want it done?”

  “Considering the Soviet vessel will be arriving in New York in twenty-four hours, I think the sooner the better, don’t you?”

  NEW HAMPSHIRE

  Slanski parked the pickup in the town’s main street. The windows of the pretty New England town were lit up in the evening darkness as they walked to the hotel on Concord Street. There was a dance band playing on the rostrum, and the waiter showed them to a window table set with fresh flowers and a red candle. He came back with two bottles of beer and poured it into their glasses before taking their order and leaving. Anna looked around the hotel restaurant. It was Friday night and the people there were mostly middle-aged, but some young couples were on the dance floor.

  When their meal came Slanski said, “It’s not exactly New York, but this is where the locals come for their night out.”

  “It’s the first time I’ve been to a place like this in America.”

  He smiled at her. “You know, you look very pretty tonight.”

  Anna looked across at him. Slanski was staring at her. Her hair was down, and she had put on lipstick and makeup and she wore the black dress she had worn the first night she had met him in New York.

  “Is this where you come to find girlfriends?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Hardly, it’s only my second time.” He looked at her and said, “Tell me about yourself, Anna.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  He sipped his beer and put down the glass. “Anything you want to tell me.”

  “No,” she said. “First you tell me about yourself.”

  He raised his eyes, faintly startled, a little amused, and suddenly he seemed more at ease. “There isn’t much to tell. Maybe it’s better if you ask me what you want to know.”

  “How did you come to live in America?”

  Slanski toyed with his glass as if he seemed to be wondering how much to tell her. He didn’t look at her directly when he spoke. “My family lived in a village near Smolensk. When my parents died my younger brother and sister and I were sent to an orphanage in Moscow. I was twelve. I hated the place. It was cold and heartless. So I made up my mind for us to escape. A relative of my father’s lived in Leningrad and I thought he’d take us in. The night we planned to escape we were caught. But I managed to get away alone and climbed aboard a train at the Leningrad Station. When I reached Leningrad the relative wasn’t very pleased and wanted to hand me back. I wandered the streets until I found myself at the docks looking at a ship. I didn’t know where it was going, and I don’t think I much cared. But I knew that ship was destiny waiting for me.” He smiled briefly. “You know what the Russians say: the seeds of what we’ll do are sown in all of us. So I stowed away on board.”

  “What happened afterward?”

  “Two weeks later I was on the docks in Boston, cold and very hungry.”

  “For a boy of twelve, what you did was remarkable.”

  Slanski shook his head. “Not so remarkable. I didn’t know it until I landed in Boston, but there were four other stowaways on the same ship. In those days it was a lot easier to escape.”

  “How did you end up with Vassily?”

  Slanski smiled. “I proved a little troublesome after I arrived in Boston. They sent me to an orphanage just as in Moscow, only the food was better and the people were kinder. But it didn’t help. And then someone had the bright idea to send me up here.”

  “He’s a good man, Vassily.”

  “The very best type of Russian. Good and kind.”

  “And your brother and sister, what happened to them?”

  He didn’t reply, and as Anna looked at him she realized it was the first time she had seen any real sign of emotion in his face. There was a flash of pain, but he seemed to want to suppress it as he leaned forward and the smile came back again. “Now it’s your turn.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Do you like Massey?”

  The question surprised her. Anna hesitated and looked away a moment. When she looked back she said, “He was the first good man I met when I escaped to Finland. The first honest and caring human being I’d known in a long time. He trusted me and helped me. They would have sent me back to Russia had it not been for him. For that I’ll always be grateful.”

  “Were you ever married, Anna?”

  Suddenly she wanted to tell him the truth, but she said, “Do we have to talk about it now?”

  “Not if you don’t want to.”

  “Then I don’t want to.” She changed the subject. “Do you trust Popov?”

  He laughed. “Of course.”

  “The Ukrainians were the worst beasts in the SS. They killed women and children without regard, without so much as a second thought. How can you trust him?”

  “Is that why you k
icked him between the legs?”

  “He got what he deserved. He should have heeded his own advice.”

  “You really don’t like him, do you, Anna?”

  “Men like him were traitors. They betrayed their own people by fighting for the Germans. They raped, they murdered.”

  Slanski heard the anger in her voice and said, “You’re wrong about Popov. And you’re neglecting an essential truth. In Russian schools they teach you a very biased history. The Ukraine was not always a part of the Soviet Union. Lenin subdued the country with his Bolsheviks. Then Stalin: he had almost five million Ukrainians killed or sent to Siberia. Men, women, children. Whole families uprooted and massacred. You have no idea of the scale of it, and Soviet history books never tell the truth.”

  “And Popov is different?”

  “He wasn’t a war criminal. He was a camp instructor, and a good one. Besides, he hates the Reds.”

  “Why?”

  “During the kulak wars when Stalin stole all the grain from the Ukraine, his people perished in the famine. What the Germans did was terrible, but what the Russians did to the Ukraine was worse.”

  He looked at her, but she didn’t speak. He put down his napkin as if to change the subject and stood and held out his hand. “Come on. Let’s dance. This is getting too serious.”

  “But it’s a long time since I danced.”

  “It’s never too late to start again.”

  Slanski led her onto the floor just as the band changed to a slow dance. He held her close, and as they danced he said, “What happened at the ridge . . .I owe you an apology.”

  Anna looked up at his face for a moment. “You don’t have to apologize.”

  “But I do. You were right, I didn’t want you along, but not for the reasons you thought. I just didn’t want you to be hurt getting involved in this.”

  “And do you still think it would be better if I didn’t come along?”

  He smiled. “Now I’m not so sure.”

  They danced two sets, and Anna was aware of Slanski holding her tight and how comforting it felt. There was some lively music at the end that had people kicking their legs in the air as a man played a fiddle. The dancing made her laugh, and when they came back to the table some people came over to say hello and she saw several women nearby give her envious glances.

  Slanski smiled. “You know you’re going to ruin my bachelor reputation in this town.”

  “Does it bother you?”

  “Not one little bit.”

  It had been a long time since Anna had danced with a man. She remembered the night Ivan had danced with her on the banks of the Moscow River, and suddenly it seemed a long time ago and she felt a little sad.

  When they finished the meal they walked back to the car, and Slanski draped his coat around her shoulders to keep out the cold.

  As they climbed into the pickup neither of them noticed the dark blue Ford sedan parked across the street, the two men inside watching them.

  • • •

  Massey’s car was parked outside the house when they got back. He was sitting at the table drinking coffee with Vassily when they went in, and when he saw Anna he smiled. “It looks like you two have been enjoying yourselves.”

  Slanski said, “All part of the training, Jake. Where’s Popov?”

  “Gone to bed. He’s starting early back to Boston tomorrow. Pull up a chair.”

  They sat and talked for ten minutes over coffee, and then Vassily went to bed. Anna said good night shortly thereafter. Massey waited until she had gone upstairs and said, “Something’s different about her tonight.”

  “Like what?”

  “A look in her eyes. What have you two been up to?”

  Slanski found the bottle of bourbon and poured them one each. “A dance and a meal and a few drinks. It did her good.”

  “So how’s she shaping up?”

  “Better than I thought.” He told Massey about Popov’s experience, and Massey smiled.

  “He ought to have known better. Maybe he’s getting old.”

  “How was Paris?”

  Massey told him about the arrangements in Paris and Helsinki. “We’ll use Lebel’s girlfriend’s dacha when you two get to Moscow. It’s ideal—remote and safe.”

  “You think it’s right, getting Lebel’s friend involved?”

  “She won’t be. If things go according to plan, as soon as Anna and you arrive in Moscow, Irena and she will leave on Lebel’s train. Then you’ll have the place to yourself.”

  Massey went over the details and then Slanski stared across at him. “You look like you’ve got something on your mind, Jake.”

  Massey drank his bourbon and put down the glass and stood. “Remember what I told you about Max Simon and his little girl? I think I’ve found who did it. A man who uses the name Kurt Braun. One of Moscow’s hired killers. And he’s in New York as an illegal.”

  “What’s he doing in New York?”

  “God only knows, but he can’t be up to much good.”

  Slanski half smiled. “Why do I sense something coming?”

  “From what I’ve heard of Braun, he’s the worst scum you could meet. He’s a psycho, Alex. He was serving time for manslaughter and rape in a German prison before the Germans got desperate for men and put him in an SS penal battalion. The Russians captured him in ’45. They gave him a choice: work for them or freeze to death in a Siberian camp. Not surprisingly, he chose the first option.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  Massey crossed to the window and looked back, anger on his face. “Branigan wants me to forget about him.”

  “But you have other plans, right?”

  “I checked with immigration. Braun arrived using a West German passport in the name of Huber three months ago. I’ve got his address. An apartment in Brooklyn. I want to pay it a visit. If it’s him, I’m going to settle the score.”

  “What about the Russians?”

  “There’s nothing they could do about it. Braun’s an illegal and they can’t even acknowledge he exists. And hopefully he won’t after we’re finished.”

  “And Branigan?”

  “He needn’t ever know if we do it properly.”

  “We?”

  Massey said hopefully, “I was kind of hoping you’d come along for the ride. Just the two of us. I’ll need someone watching my back. Anna can stay here with Vassily.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  • • •

  It was almost seven when Massey and Slanski left for New York the next morning, but Dimitri Popov had risen early and left at six to drive back to Boston. It was ten minutes later when Popov saw the Packard with New York license plates overtake him at speed. Five minutes later he saw the same Packard parked off the road, the driver kicking the front left wheel in anger.

  The man waved him down and Popov pulled in and rolled down the window. “What’s the problem?”

  “I hit a stupid pothole in the snow. I ask you, mister, is this what we pay our taxes for?” The man held up a wheel jack. “The tire’s warped as a bent nickel, and my jack’s broken. You got one I could borrow?”

  Popov grunted and stepped out of the car. The little fat man with the thin mustache looked useless, all blubber with a New York accent and gold rings on his pudgy fingers. Popov found the jack in the trunk and brought it over to the man, then pushed him aside and said, “Here, let me.”

  “Hey, thanks, mister, you’re an angel.”

  The tire looked undamaged but as Popov bent down to examine it he felt the crushing blow of something metallic on the back of his skull and then another before he keeled over.

  Then a foot slammed hard into his groin, and before he could yell in agony he heard the rush of feet from out of nowhere and the fat man’s voice saying, “Get the hick into the car.”

  Then something sharp jabbed into his arm, and he went under.

  21

  * * *

  NEW YORK

&nbs
p; FEBRUARY 22

  It was just after one and raining hard as Massey pulled up outside the apartment block in Brooklyn. It was an old red-brick tenement building with a fire escape at the back, and the place looked seriously in need of attention.

  “How do you want to handle it?”

  “The simplest way is always the best.” Massey smiled and held up a piece of paper headed with the seal of the US government. “Internal Revenue come to have a friendly chat. Braun’s apartment is on the top floor at the back. You go up the fire escape and cover me, while I go in the front. Once I’m inside, we take him.”

  Slanski tossed his cigarette out the window and took out a Tokarev pistol with a silencer, then slipped it into his waistband under his coat. “I know it’s a little late to be asking, but are you sure you know what you’re doing, Jake?”

  Massey removed a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .38 from the glove compartment and checked the chamber before slipping it into his pocket.

  “Trust me.”

  • • •

  Feliks Arkashin was tired. There were dark rings under his eyes from lack of sleep, and as he turned from the bedroom window of Braun’s apartment he looked at Popov’s body slumped in the chair.

  Two of Lombardi’s men had delivered him, and the ropes around the big man were tied securely, but Arkashin knew there was no need. The man was barely conscious from the drug and hardly capable of moving.

  Arkashin lit a cigarette and came back from the window. He stared down at Popov’s bruised face, at the trickle of blood running from his mouth down his beard, then he reached over and lifted the man’s chin. “You’re making this very difficult. Don’t you think it would be a lot easier if you told me what Massey is up to at the lake?”

  Popov grunted and his eyes flickered, then his head rolled in Arkashin’s hand and slumped to one side. Arkashin sighed. He and Braun had spent an hour trying to make the man talk, and he had barely uttered a word.